Wicked Charms (3 page)

“Yeah, me either. I’d rather my name was B. Eergut.”

It took me a beat to figure it out. “That’s gross,” I said.

Diesel grinned and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his touch giving me a rush that went from my ear to my doodah.

“Want me to try again?” Diesel asked.

“No. I want you to finish telling me about the treasure.”

“Ammon managed to get hold of the map that Palgrave Bellows fashioned. It was discovered during a ship restoration project. Ammon tucked the map under his arm, and he still has it.”

“So now Ammon has the diary and the map.”

“Yep. Problem is, the directions to the treasure are in code, and the code can’t be read without the special coin. Ammon hired a team of cryptographers, but they weren’t able to crack the code without it. So all attention turned to finding the coin.”

“How long have they been looking for the coin?”

“Years. Ammon’s had a private investigator on the case.”

“Looking for the coin?”

“Yes, but eventually looking for Peg Leg. After interviewing a lot of people, the PI discovered that the coin and the diary were originally found together, but because McCoy and Peg Leg didn’t completely trust each other, McCoy took the diary and Peg Leg took the coin. Shortly after that, Peg Leg disappeared and was never seen again. It was thought he was shot over a keg of rum, but it never went beyond rumor. Last week the Pirate Museum hung the prisoner cage, and it caught the attention of the detective. The cadaver had been dressed in pirate rags, but the peg leg had clearly been made in more modern times.”

“I didn’t notice,” I said. “It just looked like a wooden peg leg to me. And you know all this how?”

“The organization that employs me has had a man watching Ammon’s detective.”

Diesel is a sort of cop. At least that’s what he tells me. He works for a loosely organized hierarchy of People with Special Abilities. His primary job was to keep his peers on the straight and narrow. When he was assigned the task of finding the seven SALIGIA Stones, the cop part of his job became secondary.

“I was being brought back to Salem to get you into the museum when you took matters into your own hands,” Diesel said.

“It wasn’t intentional. I was just on a tour with Glo’s new boyfriend. How does Wulf know about this?”

“Wulf has his own underground and his own agenda. Hard to say how Wulf knows things sometimes…he just does.”

“So the idea now is that the coin is somehow attached to the pirate skeleton?”

“Maybe. Or maybe the history of the skeleton will lead to the coin.”

“When I touched the cage I felt a vibration just before it broke loose and fell to the floor. It wasn’t especially strong, and I thought it was probably just my imagination.”

“Honey, your imagination isn’t that good.”

“I happen to have an excellent imagination. Sometimes I imagine my life is normal.”

“Yeah, that’s a stretch,” Diesel said. “So maybe the coin was in the cage.”

“If it was, it had to be hidden somewhere. I didn’t see a coin.”

“Who had access to him?”

“The only one who actually touched the skeleton while I was there was Nergal. I’m sure the EMTs had their hands on him, but I left before they zipped him up and carted him off.”

Diesel unlocked my car and opened the driver’s side door for me. “I have stuff to do,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

—

My house looks like it was sprinkled out with a lot of other houses from the big house saltshaker sometime in the 1700s. The neighborhood is a mix of small houses built by cod fishermen, shoemakers, carpenters, and mariners, and a few larger houses that were owned by merchants and ship captains. Most of the houses still have a wooden sculpture of a golden cod above their doorways, a symbol of good luck. My golden cod was getting a little worn around the fins, and I’d had “paint your fish” in my mental to-do list for a while.

I was later getting home than usual, and Cat was waiting at the door. I snatched my mail from the mailbox, said hello to Cat, and went straight to the kitchen. I poured some kitty crunchies into Cat’s bowl, adding a slice of cantaloupe as apology for his delayed dinner. I browsed through my mail while Cat ate.

Bills, junk mail, more junk mail…Uh-oh. Letter from a publisher. A while back I’d had an idea for a cookbook,
Hot Guys Cooking for Hungry Women.
I packaged up my ideas and recipes, and my manuscript was making the rounds of New York agents and publishers. Unfortunately, no one wanted it, and I’d come to dread opening the letters that were inevitably rejections.

“What do you think, Cat?” I asked. “Should I open it? Do you have a good feeling about this one?”

Cat was sinking his fangs into the cantaloupe and didn’t appear to care a lot about the letter.

“Okay,” I said to Cat. “Wish me luck.”

I tore the envelope open and read the letter. Rejection.
Crap!

“It’s a great idea,” I said to Cat. “And the recipes are perfect. I’ve kitchen-tested them. I don’t know why no one wants to buy my book.”

I went into my small living room and turned the television on. I flipped through channels until I came to the Food Network. I watched a half hour of cooking and moved on to
Property Brothers
on HGTV. They cooked in an entirely different way.

Cat had followed me into the living room and was curled up on the couch next to me.

“This is what I need,” I said to Cat. “I need the Property Brothers. They work cheap, they always deliver on time, and they’re cute.”

I heard the front door open, and Cat gave a low growl. His ears rotated in the direction of the door, and he listened for a moment. He settled back with his nose tucked under a paw when Diesel and Carl walked into the room.

Carl jumped off Diesel’s shoulder, scuttled over to Cat, and sniffed him. Cat opened his one working eye, and Carl shrank back and wrapped his arms around Diesel’s leg. No one messes with Cat.

“Well?” I said to Diesel.

Diesel slouched onto the couch next to me, so that I was bookended between Cat and Diesel.

“I checked out the cage, and I went over the entire floor of the exhibit room,” Diesel said. “The coin wasn’t there.”

“And the dead guy?”

“I took a look at him, too. He was taken to the morgue and stored for an autopsy. No coin on the dead guy.”

“What about Wulf?”

“I talked to Wulf. He hasn’t got it.”

“There were two EMTs who handled the corpse. And probably someone checked him into the morgue.”

“And there was Dr. Death,” Diesel said.

“Nergal?”

“Yeah, my money’s on Nergal.”

“I thought you liked him. You told me I should date him.”

“He would have gone over the body and collected evidence before they closed the bag. He’s the logical person to have found the coin.”

“Did you go through his office?”

“Yeah, and the coin wasn’t there,” Diesel said. “It also wasn’t listed in the evidence log.”

The Property Brothers signed off, and I stood and stretched. “Bedtime,” I said. “I need to be at the bakery early tomorrow.”

“No problem,” Diesel said, taking charge of the remote. “I’ll be up later.”

“ ‘Up’? No. There’s no ‘up.’ You need to go home.”

“I was thinking
this
was home.”

“This is
my
home. Don’t you have a home?”

“I have a beach house in the South Pacific, but it’s kind of a far commute.”

“Where did you live in Sri Lanka?”

“Monastery. Longest three weeks of my life.”

“You used to have your own apartment here. What happened to it?”

“The guy who owned it came back to town.”

CHAPTER THREE

I shut the alarm off at four-fifteen. There was no big guy next to me. The sheets were cool. Nothing smelled like gingerbread. Hard to tell if I was happy or disappointed.

I showered, dressed for work, and trucked down to the kitchen. No big guy there, either. I gave Cat a fresh bowl of water and some kitty crunchies. I got coffee brewing, popped a frozen waffle into the toaster, and shrieked when Wulf appeared without warning.

“Jeez Louise,” I said. “I hate when people just materialize. How did you get in here?”

“I have ways.” He glanced at the waffle in the toaster. “Not a healthy breakfast, but then maybe you’re not expecting to live that long.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re playing on the losing team, and the stakes are high.”

“Another warning?”

“An offer to come over to my side. There are dark forces who know about you, know about your special abilities. When they come for you, they won’t be easy to evade.”

“I’m just a baker. I don’t even have a Facebook page. How would anyone know about me?”

“You aren’t just a baker. You are an asset and a very rare and useful one. That kind of secret doesn’t stay secret very long from people who crave power. How do you think I found you? How do you think my cousin found you? And are you so sure he isn’t interested in the stone for himself?”

“I’ll take my chances with Diesel.”

“I could make your life very pleasant,” Wulf said. “Or very uncomfortable. Which will it be?”

“Neither. Just leave me alone, and let me do my job.”

“Finding the Avarice Stone for Diesel?”

“Making cupcakes.”

Wulf’s lips curved ever so slightly into a hint of a smile. His eyes were dilated totally black. There was a flash of light, and he was gone.

I looked over at Cat. His tail was bushed out like a bottlebrush. “It’s a whole-wheat waffle,” I said to Cat. “It’s
sort
of healthy.”

—

Dazzle’s Bakery has been owned and operated by a Dazzle since Puritan times, and is now managed by Clarinda Dazzle. The shop is ancient, consisting of two rooms downstairs and a small apartment upstairs. The store part of the bakery fronts onto a narrow street that’s close to the harbor. The floor is the original wide-plank pine. The walls are whitewashed. The glass display cases are filled with cupcakes and cookies. Wicker baskets holding a variety of breads and breakfast pastries line the back counter. Clara and I work in the kitchen behind the shop, and between the two of us we make everything that’s sold up front.

I rolled into the bakery at five o’clock. I flipped the light switch, and dialed into ’60s rock on my iPad. I love this part of my day when everything is a new beginning. I love that I’m the one to unlock the door and bring the bakery to life.

I slipped on a white chef coat and got the yeast dough started. I had just moved on to cupcake batter when Clara showed up at five-thirty. Clara is divorced, is in her early forties, and lives in the apartment above the shop. She has a wiry mass of black hair shot with gray that she tries to contain in a knot at the nape of her neck. Her nose is Wampanoag Indian. The rest of her is sturdy New England pilgrim stock. I’ve been told that special abilities run in her family, and that she used to be one of us. Several years ago she made an unfortunate choice in the bedroom, and Clara was the one to get stripped of her power.

“We have a lunch takeout for twelve with meat pies and cupcakes today,” Clara said. “Plus Mr. Duggan will be here at ten for his standing order of pretzel rolls.”

“I’m on it.”

Two hours later Glo swept in with her tote bag on her shoulder and her broom in hand.

“Your tote bag has a big bulge in it,” I said to Glo.

“I know. I made the most amazing purchase. I passed by a yard sale on my way to work just now, and a voice called out to me.”

“Like when you bought
Ripple’s Book of Spells.
”

“Exactly! Only this voice belonged to Emily Shipton. It was her yard sale.”

“What did she sell you?”

“A Magic 8 Ball. And she swore it could predict the future.” Glo took the 8 Ball out and held it in her hand. “Emily said it was empowered by her distant relative Mother Shipton.”

“Mother Shipton was an English prophet who lived in a cave and died in the 1500s,” Clara said. “The Magic 8 Ball is a toy invented by Mattel in the 1950s.”

“It could have been Mother Shipton’s spirit,” Glo said.

I looked over at Broom, and I swear I saw him twitch.

Glo dropped the Magic 8 Ball back into her tote. “I asked the 8 Ball if Lizzy would have another exciting night with Theodore Nergal, and it said, ‘As I see it, yes.’ ”

“Who’s Theodore Nergal?” Clara asked.

“I fixed Lizzy up with a date last night,” Glo said. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but he was very cool. A doctor.”

“He’s a coroner,” I said. “And he smelled like formaldehyde.”

—

I was working with the large pastry bag, piping pink cream cheese frosting onto a dozen cupcakes destined for a birthday party, when Diesel sauntered in.

“Are you ready to go?” Diesel asked me.

“Ready to go where?” I asked. “It’s ten o’clock. I don’t even get done till one.”

“So, five minutes?” Diesel asked.

Clara looked over from her workstation. “Is it important?”

“You know how it is,” Diesel said, picking up one of the cupcakes and taking a bite. “The end of the world, maybe.”

Clara shoved a strand of hair back from her forehead with her forearm. “Only maybe?”

“Probably,” Diesel said.

“If it’s ‘probably’ then Lizzy can have another ‘save the world’ day, but you’re using them up fast,” Clara said.

I wasn’t in a rush to get on with saving the world. I’d been there and done that, and I wasn’t anxious to do it again.

“Why can’t you save the world by yourself?” I asked Diesel. “Why do I have to go along?”

“You have to do your touchy-feely thing. I’m big and strong and smokin’ hot, but I’m not touchy-feely.”

This was all true.

“I’ll be with you as soon as I finish this batch of cupcakes,” I said to Diesel.

“I’ll help,” Diesel said, grabbing a second pastry bag off the counter.

“No! I don’t need help.”

“How hard can it be? You just squeeze the bag, and the stuff comes out.”

Diesel squeezed the bag and pink frosting shot out and hit me in the head.

I rolled my eyes up, as if I could see the gunk that was now stuck in my hair.